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Robins
Robins are truly gardener's bird. There's one in our back garden at present who is remarkably tame. He'll come within a foot of me if I don't move too abruptly. He's been having a field day today - I've been digging out some old hellibores to makes space for another gooseberry bush this autumn and this, of course, results in lots of freshly dug soil with the resulting crop of tasty insects for him.
I've been watching him when he cleans his feathers. He really is just a fluff ball of (mostly white when you get to the underneath ones) of feathers, balanced on fuse wire legs. Lots of personality - robins always seem to be great characters. He watches me with that bright little black eye of his and I always get the feeling that he knows what I'm thinking.
I feel I should introduce you to Judith's theory of robins. You will have noticed, if you are a gardener, that robins always act as though they know you. Well, of course, they do. All robins are actually the same robin. It is a basic fact of robins that you never see more than one. Thus, it follows that the robin that acts so familiar down our allotment does so because he is in fact the same robin that lives in my garden. When you go for a country walk, it is clear that every time you think you encounter a new robin, it is in fact the same one just following you along. Every gardener/walker has their own person quantum robin.
This explains everything, including why it is impossible to tell male and female robins apart. There is actually only one bird per nest, reproducing by some unique variation of parthenogenisis. And if you wonder how the robin manages to impregnate itself, well, the males have always been nicknamed 'cock robin'!
I've been watching him when he cleans his feathers. He really is just a fluff ball of (mostly white when you get to the underneath ones) of feathers, balanced on fuse wire legs. Lots of personality - robins always seem to be great characters. He watches me with that bright little black eye of his and I always get the feeling that he knows what I'm thinking.
I feel I should introduce you to Judith's theory of robins. You will have noticed, if you are a gardener, that robins always act as though they know you. Well, of course, they do. All robins are actually the same robin. It is a basic fact of robins that you never see more than one. Thus, it follows that the robin that acts so familiar down our allotment does so because he is in fact the same robin that lives in my garden. When you go for a country walk, it is clear that every time you think you encounter a new robin, it is in fact the same one just following you along. Every gardener/walker has their own person quantum robin.
This explains everything, including why it is impossible to tell male and female robins apart. There is actually only one bird per nest, reproducing by some unique variation of parthenogenisis. And if you wonder how the robin manages to impregnate itself, well, the males have always been nicknamed 'cock robin'!
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I will try to explore the swallows ... you have inspired me!
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Robins explore gardens, but you investigate a robin.
I'd definitely like to know more about your swallows. We have house martins, but not swallows (though there are swallows above the allotment.)
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Swallow project!
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This is the kind of nonsense that gives ornithology a bad name. The truth is far more interesting. The term 'cock robin' is a reference to the fact that although there are indeed male and female robins, only the males are fertile. They reproduce by a process called execral androgenesis, by which the juveniles first appear as tiny buds just inside the cloacal aperture. They then migrate through the male's soft underdown and develop within a brood chamber known as the axillary pouch, where the wing meets the main body.
This is normally carried out in winter, hence the reference in the nursery rhyme to the robin hiding himself in the barn and tucking his head under his wing. Of course, it wasn't until the robin's unique reproductive behaviour was first discovered (by the great Spanish ornithologist Estes Torocaca in the 1930s) that it was realised that what the robin was really doing was feeding his young in the axillary pouch. These days, thanks to global warming, the young may be produced as early as September and androgenetic reproduction may continue into May.
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The literary reference does credit to your case, but in totality, I find it excrecable.
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